Originally Posted by
sailingfun
I didn’t know the exact answer but suspected Delta has had the fastest growing widebody fleet. I didn’t look and Delta appears to have had a net increase of 16 Airframes verses United being static or actually decreasing a couple of airframes. United does have a large order book however they have a huge replacement cycle coming up.
Its a bit of a deceptive statistic, as UA didn't retire airplanes during covid like DL (bunch of 767s and all the 777s) and AA (330s and 767s). So it is an 'artificially low' baseline from which to measure subsequent growth.
Looking forward UA's huge orderbook will be offset by retirements (old 777s, 767s most likely) but still forward looking it isn't even close on net between them and everyone else.
AA has become an also-ran but has also been hamstrung by not being able to get their new 787s anywhere near on schedule. As they seem to be waking up on the need to compete I expect to see a big WB order from them, while DL sits on its reputation and codeshare partners until GH and EB retire, at which point I question if the historical revenue premium will still exist.
Time will tell!